1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of computer performance, and more specifically, to performance management.
2. Description of Related Art
The performance of a computer system depends on a variety of factors. These factors include workload demands, system resources, scheduling policy, degree of parallelism and/or multiprogramming, etc. It is desirable to monitor the computer-performance to maximize processor utilization and optimize resource allocation.
Typically, system resources have been allocated among running programs by means of a priority-based process scheduler. Each process is assigned a priority and available processors are allocated to the highest priority processes waiting for a processor. The behavior of the process scheduler can be further refined by setting other system parameters. Although this mechanism may work well for some systems, there are circumstances where it presents difficulties.
One problem with the fixed priority-based process scheduling is the uncertainty in determining a suitable set of process priorities and system parameter settings for a given workload. Another problem is the difficulty in predicting the likely effects when an adjustment is made to the system parameters. More importantly, when the workload is changed, the system may not respond effectively, leading to inefficient resource allocation and unpredictability of system performance.